Turkey’s ruling party has completed proposal on presidency: PM

ANKARA: Turkey’s ruling AK Party has finished working on its proposal for a constitutional change to create an executive presidency and is now ready to submit it to parliament, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Sunday.

“We have finished our work for the new constitution and the executive presidency,” Yildirim said in a speech closing a two-day party conference.

“What we will do now is to take our proposition to the parliament as soon as possible, and leave it to the decision of the noble parliament.”

Members of the AKP have been meeting in the western Afyon province this weekend, with much of the focus on work related to the proposed executive presidency.

President Tayyip Erdogan, who founded the AKP, has long sought a presidency with greater power.

Critics fear the change could consolidate too much power in his hands.

Two police officers were killed and 19 people were wounded when a car bomb exploded near a passing police vehicle in the eastern Turkish province of Bingol on Sunday, security sources said.

The bomb, planted by militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), was detonated near the district governor’s office, the security sources said. Five police officers were among the injured, they said.

Hours before the bombing, PKK militants had attempted an attack overnight on the district governor’s home, using long-range rifles and rocket launchers, Dogan news agency reported.

Two militants made it to the door of the house, but fled when police returned fire, it said. Security sources also said that Turkish warplanes hit PKK targets in the mountainous region of the southeastern Sirnak province, near the border with Iraq.

Fifteen militants were killed in the air strikes, and ammunition and weapon stocks were also hit, the sources said. The Turkish military said in a statement that four militants were killed on Saturday in Hakkari province, also in the southeast.

A total of 463 militants have been killed in military operations in the province, it said. Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast has been hit by waves of violence since the collapse of a 2-1/2-year ceasefire between the state and the PKK last year.